


Asses are Made for Bearing (and so are you)

by Jelly



Series: The Primrose Path [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/M, Friendship, Gen, i told you i wasn't done with this au, snk but at hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7518223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jelly/pseuds/Jelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: Five times Eren got his friends stuck in detention and the one time they managed to bail him out. A companion piece for The Marriage of True Minds. </p><p>Hogwarts AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asses are Made for Bearing (and so are you)

**Author's Note:**

> I told you guys when I finished [The Marriage of True Minds](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6340567/chapters/14526490) that I wasn't done with this AU and given that I have 300 things on my plate right now, I thought it would be a fantastic idea to continue it now! There's more coming. I've been meaning to do an Eremika Hogwarts AU to go with the Aruani one, so you can look at this one as a sort of bridging exercise.
> 
> Please note, this doesn't rely too heavily on details from The Marriage of True Minds, but if you have the time and would like some more, please go and check that out!
> 
> Enjoy!

_Asses are made for bearing (and so are you)_

 

 

v.

Armin’s in a mood.

 They’re in first year. It’s barely been a week, so Eren rules out the idea that he’s homesick already, although, given what he learnt about Armin’s lineage on the train, he has a vague sort of idea of what might be the problem.

 “You shouldn’t let the Braun and Hoover boys get to you,” says Eren mildly over dinner. Armin’s in Ravenclaw, but he’s with Eren at the Gryffindor table tonight because Eren thinks he could use some cheering up. “Blood status doesn’t mean anything to anyone else here – hell, you’re friends with _Annie Leonhardt_ , and if _she_ doesn’t care even though her family’s all _pure blood,_ you should take that as indication of how little it matters.”

 “That’s not the problem,” grumbles Armin, pushing his peas around on his plate. “I don’t care what they call _me_.”

 “Then what’s the issue?”

 Armin hesitates. “It’s…” he sighs. “It’s what they call Annie. She’s been nothing but nice to me since I met her in Diagon Alley, and they keep calling her things like ‘blood traitor’ just because she wasn’t sorted into Slytherin. What’s even _with_ that? Why’s that so important?”

 “Ah.” Eren purses his lips. “I’m not gonna lie, Armin, I’m a little wary of her too because of that. It’s _weird_ that she’s not in Slytherin.”

 "You _just_ said that it didn’t matter,” Armin points out.

 Eren purses his lips again and backtracks because Armin’s right. He lets out a sigh, sneaking a glance at the Ravenclaw table and at the girl sitting alone at the end. “Yeah. My bad,” he mutters.

 

 

 “Can you _believe_ that blood traitor?”

 It’s getting late. Armin and Eren are two staircases away from going their separate ways when Reiner shoves past them both on his way past. Bertholdt is a little less physical about it, but he barely acknowledges them in favour of listening to Reiner.

 “What’s her father going to say when he finds out she’s not even trying? I mean, sure, Ravenclaw, but she can at least _act_ like she’s not a complete blood traitor. Instead, she’s hanging out with that mudblood Arlert kid.”

 Eren bristles. “Say that again,” he snaps, hands balling into fists at his sides. Beside him, Armin pauses, eyes wide.

 Reiner pauses too, and he glances back at them and lets out a snort. “What do you care, Jaeger?” he says.

 “You heard me,” says Eren. “Say that again.”

 “Eren, what are you doing?” hisses Armin.

 Reiner scoffs. “I think,” he says, “that he wants me to call you a mudblood again, Arlert.”

 “One more time,” says Eren. “I couldn’t hear you.”

 “I said,” says Reiner – he’s practically yelling, and it just makes Eren’s blood boil in his veins - “that your friend Arlert is a _mudblood_ and that his little girlfriend is a _blood traitor._ ”

 And Eren punches him in the face.

 It’s all a bit of a blur, but vaguely, he registers Armin trying to pull him off Reiner before Reiner manages to sock Armin in the jaw. Bertholdt gets involved at some point, and it’s a heck of a scuffle before Professor Ackerman manages to intervene.

 “What in the _hell_ are you doing?” snaps Ackerman.

 “Sorry, sir,” Eren huffs, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “Braun and Hoover said some shitty things about my friends.”

 Levi bristles. “I don’t care. And watch your language, Jaeger. You are all _aware_ that fighting isn’t tolerated in the halls. Detention. All four of you. Don’t look so smug, Braun, I’m sending an owl to your families too. Get to your common rooms. _Now.”_

Armin rubs his jaw carefully. “We probably shouldn’t have done that,” he mutters.

 In spite of himself, Eren snorts. “Worth it, though, wasn’t it?”

 

 

iv.

 In his professional opinion as one of the Gryffindor Quidditch team’s beaters, Eren is pretty screwed.

 He’s in second year, and he’s been part of the team for most of this year, but he can one hundred percent guarantee that he won’t be much longer if he doesn’t figure a way out of this mess. In hindsight, stumbling over his Quidditch robes and dragging mud through the great hall probably isn’t the best idea, but he’s desperate, and he knocks over Mina Carolina’s goblet in his haste to get to Armin and Annie at the Ravenclaw table.

 “Annie,” he croaks, clapping a muddy hand against her shoulder.

 Annie wrinkles her nose and raises a disgusted eyebrow at him. “What the heck happened to you?”

 Eren glances at the Gryffindor table to make sure his team isn’t back yet before he swallows and tugs on her sleeve like a child. “I messed up. You have to help me.”

 She narrows her eyes. “What did you do?” She doesn’t phrase it like a question, and he wilts under her glare.

 “There’s – ” He shuffles uneasily. “It was my turn to put the gear away after training today, and I thought I could maybe I could get in some extra practise and – well – _IletthebludgerslooseandnowIcan’tfindthem_.”

 “You _what?_ ”

 Eren’s honestly not sure if she’s incredulous or if she just misunderstood. He swallows again and leans over to whisper against her ear. “ _I let the bludgers loose and I can’t find them.”_

Beside her, Armin snorts so loudly that he almost chokes on his pumpkin juice, and Eren can’t help but flush in embarrassment. He tugs at Annie’s sleeve again. “ _Please,_ Annie, you’re the only one who can fly and beat a bludger back who _won’t_ rat me out.”

 Annie stares at him. “ _No,_ ” she snaps. “No. I refuse. The pitch is out of bounds at this time of night and I’m not risking suspension from my next match because _you_ lost the bludgers!”

 “Shh!” Eren glances at the Gryffindor table and crouches, hiding behind Armin when Gunther Schultz, the Gryffindor Captain, seats himself across the hall. “I’ll owe you a favour.”

 “What are you, six?”

 “No questions asked,” pleads Eren. “You just say what you need and I’ll do it. _Please_ , Annie.” He looks desperately at Armin like his word will convince her, but Armin just shakes his head and shifts away. “I’ll do your next Charms essay for you.”

 “What, and get a lower score than if I did it myself?” Annie snorts.

 Eren chews on his lip. “What’s it gonna take, Annie? _Please._ ”

 She groans. “You won’t leave me alone otherwise, will you?”

 “Absolutely not.”

 “Urgh.” Annie rolls her eyes and shoves her plate away. “Whatever. Let’s get this done and over with.”

 

 

 They get two steps out of the broom shed before Professor Pixis catches them in the act.

 “Do I even want to know?” he asks, and Eren blanches because he can already feel Annie glaring holes into the back of his head.

 “Er – sir – it’s just –”

 “The bludgers are missing, I noticed,” says Pixis mildly.

 Eren almost squeaks.

 “And the pitch is out of bounds after dark.”

 “I am going to _murder you_ ,” hisses Annie.

 Eren actually _does_ squeak.

 Pixis’ moustache twitches, and Eren swears that the old man thinks that this whole thing is really funny. “Well, what’ll it be? Detention or suspension from your next match?”

 “Detention,” mumbles Eren.

 

 

(It’s a complete accident, but Annie knocks him off his broom at the following Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw match. She pretends that she did it on purpose for getting her into detention. He laughs it off nervously and agrees that he had it coming).

 

 

 

 

iii.

 “Armin.” Eren makes a face and eyes his potion nervously. They’re in third year and, for a dungeon that’s usually freezing, it’s suddenly very hot. Eren’s potion, which is _supposed_ to be clear with a fine haze of steam, is a thick, tar black solution that looks almost sentient as it bubbles dangerously in his cauldron. “Armin, _help.”_

Armin glances up from his potions text book and makes an odd, sort of horrified noise. “What did you _do_ to it?”

 “I don’t know!” hisses Eren, eyeing Professor Bossard carefully to make sure he’s still on the other side of the room. “I followed the instructions exactly!”

 “You obviously didn’t or your potion wouldn’t look like it wants to kill Peter Parker!”

 Eren frowns at him. “ _What?”_

 “Just – ” Armin waves him off. “Never mind. It’s a muggle joke. Show me what you did last.”

 Eren nods and tugs frantically at his potions textbook. He mutters to himself for a moment before he prods at Armin’s shoulder and points at instruction six. “There, see, the lacewing flies. It says to add eight, and I did.”

 “Are you sure you added eight?” asks Armin.

 Eren falters for a moment, trying to think – honestly, he’s not sure how much he added – he’d just taken a handful and thrown them in, be he’s not about to admit to that. “Maybe I didn’t add enough?”

 “Um. Okay, let’s try that.”

 The next part happens in a blur – or, more correctly, an explosion. Armin tips a couple more lacewing flies into Eren’s cauldron, and suddenly the whole thing goes up in flames. On Eren’s other side, Mikasa lets out a shriek as some of the black sludge lands on her arm, and the textbook Annie had been sharing with her catches fire along with the sleeve of Annie’s robe. Eren falls off the back of his chair with an undignified yelp, and Armin takes cover under the bench as the cauldron spits and sputters at everything in the immediate vicinity.

 It’s utter chaos for ten minutes, and when Professor Bossard finally gets everything under control, Mikasa’s arm is red and tender and Annie’s sleeve is half gone. Eren’s pretty sure that if she wasn’t clutching her arm to her chest and hissing curses, Mikasa would have slapped him, and then allowed Annie to slap him too.

 Bossard looks _livid_ , and between him, Mikasa, and Annie’s scalding glares, Eren feels like it would be safer to join Armin under the table.

 “Leonhardt, take Ackerman to the hospital wing,” snaps Bossard. “Quickly, that burn needs attention. As for you two.”

 Armin peers over the top of the desk, face red all the way to the roots of his hair. “We’re sorry, sir,” he mutters weakly.

 “I think Ackerman deserves that apology more than I do,” snarls Bossard. “Detention. And I want a two rolls of parchment from both of you explaining the importance of _following the instructions._ ” He sighs and glances around the mess of a classroom. “Well, there’s no point in keeping the rest of you here. Dismissed. Jaeger and Arlert will clean up after you.”

 

 

 Mikasa’s fine, of course – Madame Ral can heal even the worst of burns in less than a second – but Eren doesn’t allow himself to stop feeling guilty until Armin teaches him how to conjure flowers with his wand. His own flowers look a little wilted compared to his, but Mikasa holds no ill will and accepts them regardless.

 (It’s not until much later that he realizes why Mikasa’s face is so red, and why that’s such a big deal).

 

 

 

 ii.

“Stop.” Ackerman scrunches his eyes shut and massages his temples with a groan.

 Eren shuffles. They’re in fourth year, and Professors Ackerman and Dok study him (and Annie and Armin) looking both exhausted and incredulous. He can’t blame them. It’ll be a heck of a story to tell one day, but right now, in Ackerman’s office, it’s a bit embarrassing to have to repeat. Eren coughs sheepishly.

 “Tell me again how you managed to sneak a niffler into Ravenclaw Tower.”

 Eren swallows. “Er – well, sir – Professor Zoe was showing them off in class today and – er – well, one followed me up to the castle. So I – um – ”

 “Why on _earth_ would you not take it back to Professor Zoe?”

 “It wouldn’t leave me alone, sir,” he says, staring at the floor and jamming his hands in his pockets to make sure the niffler treats he’d nicked during class aren’t peeking out of his robes. “I went to Ravenclaw Tower to ask for help from – from those two.”

 Dok shoots a glare at his students. Annie, to her credit, doesn’t look even a little bit guilty about today’s events, and instead looks as exhausted as Dok. Armin is significantly less composed, and he withers under Dok’s gaze. “I’m to understand that you two let him into Ravenclaw Tower, am I?”

 Annie rolls her shoulders, and Eren is ninety percent sure that she can at least get herself and Armin out of trouble, but Armin cracks under the pressure and starts blabbing before she can even open her mouth.

 “It’s – it’s not that we let him in,” he stammers. “I mean, at least not on purpose – we didn’t realize he had a niffler following him around, sirs – ”

 “We discussed this last semester, Arlert,” Dok snaps. “How many times have I told you not to let students from other houses into your common room?”

 Armin swallows. “It seemed harmless at the time, sir, I mean, what’s the point of dividing the school up like that _really_? Besides, Annie and I visit Gryffindor Tower all the time, and –”

 “Armin.” Annie has that odd grin on her face, and Eren shifts away a little because it’s the one that she wears when she’s about ready to strangle him.

 “It’s not like we gave him the password or anything – Ravenclaw Tower doesn’t even _have_  password, it’s not our fault he’s figured out how to answer the riddle to get in –”

 “Armin, stop talking.”

 Dok holds up a hand. “How many times, exactly, have you two let Mr. Jaeger into Ravenclaw Tower?”

 Armin stares at the floor, and his face goes so red that Eren thinks he might spontaneously combust.

Annie rolls her eyes. “Maybe he’s just a _clever_ Gryffindor, sir,” she drawls. Eren thinks this might be the nicest thing she’s ever said about him, but she’s still wearing that odd, almost murderous grin and it just makes him feel uncomfortable in his own skin. “Perhaps we should think about changing the way students enter Ravenclaw Tower. It’s not exactly secure if _Eren_ _Jaeger_ knows how to get in and out.”

He scowls at her. “Ouch, Annie.”

 She gives him a _look_ , and Eren squeaks and stares at the floor.

 “This isn’t a joke, Leonhardt,” snaps Dok. “Ravenclaw Tower is a wreck and there’s at _least_ forty galleons missing.”

 “And you’ve found them, sir,” says Annie, nodding at the pile of gold on Ackerman’s desk. The niffler in the cage sniffs eagerly at it. “And we’re all magic here, Ravenclaw Tower isn’t in such disarray that we can’t charm it back to how it was.”

 Dok scowls. “Detention. All three of you. And if I hear that you’ve let Jaeger into Ravenclaw Tower _again_ , it’ll be straight to the headmaster’s office, am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Annie says snippily, and she shoots a glare at Eren so icy that it feels he just walked through a ghost.

 Eren loosens his collar and makes a note to stay well away from her during their next Quidditch match.

 

 

 

 i.

 In the time that Eren has been at Hogwarts, he’s gotten Annie into detention twice, Armin into detention with him more times than he can count – hell, he’s even gotten Kirschstein into detention at least four times, but he has never once brought Mikasa down with him.

 Mikasa is special. She has corrected his homework, helped him cram for finals, done him more favours than he can ever hope to repay, and even kept him from being suspended once – Mikasa absolutely deserves better than being dragged into detention with him, and he has succeeded at this for five whole years.

 That is, until today.

 To be fair, most of the other times he’d been given detention were because of stupid decisions on his part, but this one decision today just makes sense. He’s known about Mikasa’s feelings for him for a while now, and there was a time, when he was younger, when he just didn’t feel the same way. Things have changed a little since then – they are both older, and Eren is a little less stupid about interpreting girls’ feelings, and today, while Mikasa is sitting idly by a window, her notes forgotten in her lap as sunlight dances across her face, Eren decides that she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

 He coughs to get her attention, and then regrets it immediately because she snaps out of her reverie and turns to him.

 “Hey,” she greets.

 “Hi,” says Eren. Mentally, he kicks himself for sounding so awkward. There was a reason he’d disturbed her, he’s sure of it, but he can’t remember it now. He purses his lips. “What are you looking at?” he asks instead.

 She chuckles and moves over a little. “Look,” she says, jerking her head at the open window.

 Eren does, and he can’t help but chuckle too. Armin and Annie are seated by the lake, and even from here, he can see the rare smile form on Annie’s lips as Armin braids her hair. “They think they’re so good at pretending. Maybe we should tell them we’ve known the whole time.”

 “They’ve never tried that hard around us, though,” Mikasa points out. She pauses, and Eren knows what she’s about to ask.

 “It’s fine,” he says. “I was thirteen. I knew then that it was a long shot.”

 “Hm.” Mikasa pauses again, before she heaves a sigh and slips off the window sill, notes in a haphazard pile in her arms. She’s blushing, and Eren realizes far too late that while he may have figured out the state of his own feelings, she still doesn’t know that his affection has shifted to her. He makes a grab for her hand, and it would be the smoothest thing ever to just pull her in and kiss her now, but he fumbles and sends her notes tumbling to the ground instead.

 “Shit.” He flushes and crouches over. “Let me – ”

 “No it’s fine – oh…”

 She’s crouched over too, and Eren feels the air leave his lungs when he realizes how close their faces are. He sucks in a breath.

 And then he does the only thing that makes sense, and he’s kissing her, and his hands find her cheeks, and her fingers card through his hair, and it’s the single most amazing moment of his life so far until –

 “JAEGER.”

 Eren tears himself away from her, and he barely has time to take a breath before Professor Ackerman drags him up by his ear. “Detention,” he snaps. “And don’t give me that look, Ackerman, I expected better from you.”

 Eren doesn’t think he’s ever seen Mikasa so red, and in any other situation, it would be funny, except that Professor Ackerman sill has him by the ear.

 “Uncle, please,” stammers Mikasa, “it’s not that big a deal –”

 “I’m sure it’s not,” snarls Ackerman, “but as your teacher I can’t condone this behaviour in the halls, and as your uncle, I never want to see it again.” He lets go of Eren’s ear at last, and Eren stumbles backwards muttering a string of curses under his breath.

 “Mind your language,” adds Professor Ackerman coolly. “Twenty points from Gryffindor, and you _both_ have detention. God knows I have to see enough of you brats getting frisky in the halls, I sure as hell don’t need to see my niece doing it too. Scram. Don’t you have OWLs to be studying for?”

 Mikasa collects her notes from the floor without another word, and she and Eren hurry away as civilly as they can manage.

 “Sorry,” mumbles Mikasa, the blush returning to her face. “We probably shouldn’t have done that.”

 Eren actually laughs. “Totally worth it, though, right?”

 Mikasa flushes even deeper, but she smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

 

 

 

-

 By the time Eren is in sixth year, he figures he should probably cut down on the trouble he gets into and be a better role model for younger students, especially because he’s technically a school leader by virtue of being Gryffindor’s Quidditch Captain, but there are some things that he, as a proud and valiant Gryffindor, just can’t let slide.

 Once, in first year, he had gotten into a fight with Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover for calling Armin a mudblood, and Annie a blood traitor. They leave them alone now, mostly because Annie’s family is powerful and given she has fully accepted her role as an heiress, it’s not worth the trouble to cross her. Eren’s been pretty good at _not_ getting into fights since, and he doesn’t let their insults and names get to him like a real adult until one day Reiner says something that he can’t forgive.

 “I don’t care how good a healer Jaeger is, he married a _muggle_ , God, what a _dunglicker._ ”

 Eren stops so suddenly in the hallway that Armin collides into his back.

 “Eren, what the hey --?”

 “Say that again,” snaps Eren.

 Reiner turns and a smirk forms on his lips. “Oh! It’s our favourite band of blood traitors!” he sneers.

 Eren rolls his neck, but Mikasa places a hand on his shoulder and shakes her head.

 “Don’t,” she says quietly. “It’s not worth it. Come on, we have things to do.”

 For a moment, the anger building in Eren’s chest dies, and he touches Mikasa’s hand and heaves a sigh. And then –

 “That’s what I thought,” scoffs Reiner. “Listen to your scumsucker girlfriend – ”

 And Eren punches him in the face.

 Reiner makes a move to retaliate but Professor Zoe rounds the corner and raises an eyebrow at the scene. Reiner has stumbled backwards into Bert, Eren is seething and his fists are still clenched, Mikasa is livid, and she’s tugging him back by his robes, and Armin and Annie’s wands are suddenly in their hands.

 “What’s going on here?” asks Zoe brightly.

 “Jaeger punched him,” says Bertholdt, helping Reiner back onto his feet. “He –”

 “It’s all just playful banter, ma’am,” interrupts Annie coldly. She glowers at the Slytherin boys, daring them to say anything different. “Eren doesn’t know how to pull his punches, that’s all.”

 Armin catches on quickly and nods. “Er, yes,” he adds, “Don’t mind us, ma’am, we were just on our way down to lunch when we ran into Reiner and Bertholdt. They’re just fooling around.”

 “Hm,” says Zoe, and she turns towards to face Braun and Hoover. “Boys?”

 There’s a pause. Braun and Hoover exchange glances, but under Mikasa’s icy glare, the threat of Eren’s unbridled rage, Armin’s reputation as the smartest wizard of their age, and Annie’s authority now that she has fully accepted her role as the Leonhardt heiress, they fold.

 Reiner snorts. “Everything’s fine here, Professor,” he says, scowling at them. He thumps Bertholdt’s shoulder twice and jerks his head towards the staircase at the end of the hall. “Let’s go.”

 They do, and Zoe waits til they’re out of earshot before she rounds on Eren. “I’m not blind, Jaeger,” she says. “You’re lucky you’ve got your friends here to back up your ‘story’. It’d be a detention otherwise.” She shakes her head and sighs. “Run along.”

 Even if he _had_ gotten detention, it’s not a huge deal – again, Eren has got himself in and out of so much trouble that he’s relatively used to detention, but he still can’t help but feel nothing but gratitude for his friends as they make their way down to the Great Hall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BONUS

 They’re in seventh year, and the castle is dark.

 It would be. It’s the middle of the night, and it doesn’t matter that Armin and Mikasa are Head Boy and Girl, and that Eren and Annie are the Quidditch Captains for their respective house teams, wandering the grounds at three thirty in the morning is still against school rules. Eren’s pretty sure he could get the others into a fair bit of trouble for this, but what the heck, it’s they’re last school year, and Professor Ackerman had shut down the joint Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Quidditch Tie party early.

 They’re in the Viaduct Courtyard. Armin and Annie are seated on one of the benches and watching as Mikasa brings a little blue fire to life in her hands. Armin is all smiles, and Annie is all sass, and Mikasa has had the prettiest grin on her face all night, and at some point, Eren loses himself in the magic of it all. Not magic, as in spells and wandwork – no, it’s a different kind of magic, and he hopes that, long after they have graduated, and after they have families of their own, he’ll remember this.

 He breathes in the night air, trying to stamp this image in his head forever when Professor Ackerman tuts from the courtyard entrance and he feels the moment fall away like shattered glass.

 “Oh,” says Mikasa. Eren can almost feel her disappointment. “Hello, Uncle.”

 “I expected better from the four of you,” he says, frowning. “You’re supposed to be school leaders, and here you are wandering the grounds in the middle of the night.”

 Eren hangs his head. “Sorry, Professor. It’s my fault, I dragged them out tonight and –”

 Ackerman holds up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it,” he snaps, but he looks at the four of them and sighs. “And I don’t want to see it either. In fact.” He pauses, and Eren feels something like hope well in his chest. “I didn’t see it at all. I’m going to bed.”

 The four of them pause.

 “Wait,” says Annie. “That’s it? No detention or docking points?”

 Ackerman shrugs. “Not from me, and not tonight. Heaven help you if someone else catches you, though. I’m not sticking up for you brats.”

 There’s a second pause, and Armin breaks it by bursting into a fit of giggles. Eren stares at him like he’s grown two extra heads, but, at last, he sucks in a breath and gets to his feet. “Thanks Professor,” he says, grinning widely. “We won’t be out for much longer.”

 “Save it for the next teacher who finds you out here,” says Ackerman, and he turns on his heel and heads back into the castle. There’s silence for a moment, and even from here, they can hear him grumbling about how he’ll “be rid of them in a month anyway, thank fucking God.”

 “I doubt that,” says Annie, nodding at Eren and Mikasa. “He’s never going to be rid of _you_ , Jaeger. God help him.”

 Eren snorts, and then they are laughing again, and the breeze catches the sound and carries it into the cool night air.

 

 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> 1) A niffler is a furry black magical creature with a big long nose that loves shiny things. They're good for hunting treasure, but they will wreak havoc if you let them indoors.
> 
> 2) I know I'm a little harsh to Reiner and Bert's characters but I'm still really salty at Reiner emotionally manipulating Annie into helping murder Marco and at Bert for just standing there and not doing anything about it.
> 
> 3) There's more coming. I can't guarantee a when, but there's definitely more coming.


End file.
